By: V Sundaram, IAS, Retd.
December 17, 2006
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FeedbackLast week I was reading an article by Ramachandra Guha on Guruji
Golwalkar (1906 - 1973)under the title The Guru of Hate. As a learned
historian with a track record no less than that of Herodotus, Thucydides,
Edward Gibbon, G M Trevelyan and Arnold Toynbee in the realms of
historiography in the Western tradition and Jadunath Sarkar, R C Majumdar
and K A Neelakanta Sastri in the Indian context, Ramachandra Guha has
declared with magisterial aplomb, suffused with pseudo-secular suavity
that Guruji Golwalkar was The Guru of Hate. To quote his exact and
inspiring(!?) words which will live in history, famed in song and legend
for generations to come: "Golwalkar's book disparages democracy as alien
to the Hindu ethos and extols the code of Manu... THIS column generally
deals more -much more - in appreciation than in depreciation. However, it
is obligatory on the historian to also (occasionally) notice individuals
whose influence on history was MALIGN rather than salutary. One such
person was the Hindu ideologue M S Golwalkar, whose birth anniversary his
followers are marking this year".

When Nathuram Godse was sentenced to death for the murder of Mahatma
Gandhi, the learned judge categorically declared that "neither the RSS nor
Guruji Golwalkar had anything to do with that act of unpardonable crime".
Most of our pseudo-secular journalists today, under the economic hegemony
of the secular mafia of mass media, would be too willing to do
"investigative" journalism in the name of objective secular history ? to
sell their non-existent souls for a mess of pottage ? in order to find out
whether Justice G D Khosla who gave the final verdict was saffron zed or
communal in his family background which influenced him to give a verdict
in favor of the RSS and Guruji Golwakar. In this context let us hear the
pontifical time-defying secular verdict of Ramachandra Guha: "On 30
January, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by Nathuram Godse. Although
Godse was not a member of the RSS at the time of the murder, he had been
one in the past. And there were reports that in several places RSS members
had celebrated his act by distributing sweets. As a precautionary measure,
Golwalkar and other RSS workers were put in jail. Secret documents that
this writer has recently seen strongly suggest that even if the RSS was
not directly implicated in Gandhi's murder, its main leader was not
entirely averse to such a happening". I never knew that journalists can
function as unpaid agents of the police force in India which was described
by Justice Mullah of the Allahabad High Court in a historic pronouncement
as "there is no more organized lawless criminal force in the country than
the Indian Police Force".

Suitably readapting the words of George Orwell from his brilliant essay
"Politics and the English Language", I would like to say that the political
language of Indian journalists of global fame (if not influence!) like
Ramachandra Guha is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
justifiable through the sordid mill of one sided journalism in order to
give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell had many of our bumptious pseudo-secular journalists in view
when he wrote with biting sarcasm in the same essay referred to above: "A
man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then
fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same
thing that is happening to the English language.

It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the
slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish
thoughts. The point is that the process is REVERSIBLE". Aaya Rams and Gaya
Rams, Thekha Rams and Sub-jante Rams of the secular mafia mass media are
working round the clock to make NEWSPEAK the official language of our
degenerate nation today. Our great journalists let the meaning of their
concealed prejudice and hatred of things Hindu choose the word and not the
other way about. Good prose is like a window-pane. In the sordid world of
journalistic prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender
to them with pseudo-secular fervor. In the Indian context it means
surrender not only to chosen non-saffron zed words but also to chosen
tycoons in the menacing mafia of mass media pervading the country.

Five years ago, as a private citizen of no significance, I had the
opportunity to scrutinize and verify the available official records in the
National Archives in New Delhi. Even if according to our mighty
journalists of global stature, Justice GD Khosla was prejudiced in his
verdict, they cannot so stupidly ignore or overlook the fact that Sardar
Vallabai Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister in the
Government of India had also sent a letter to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the
Prime Minister, on 27 February, 1948, less than a month after Mahatma
Gandhi's assassination on 30 January, 1948 : "I have kept myself almost in
daily touch with the progress of the investigations regarding Bapu's
assassination case. All the main accused have given long and detailed
statements of their activities. It also clearly emerges from the
statements that the RSS was not involved in it at all". These words of
Patel would be dismissed as "saffron zed" and "communal" by the sweet
suckers of honeyed secularism in all our major English Newspapers with the
full benediction of the UPA Government in New Delhi.

Sardar Patel in a letter to Guruji Golwalkar paid this tribute to the RSS:
"There is no doubt that the RSS has served the Hindu society in times of
crisis. In riot-torn areas where their help was needed, the youths of the
Sangh protected the women and the children and did a lot for them. No one
can doubt that the RSS provided succor and safety to Hindus in times of
difficulty".

Field Marshal Cariappa, whose patriotism can be questioned only by the
paid below the table mercenaries in the world of pseudo-journalism, paid
his soulful tribute to the RSS after watching their heroic work in Jammu
and Kashmir when the Muslim marauders (romantic objects of unrequited love
in the eyes of pseudo-secular Indian journalists!) invaded the Kashmir
Valley in 1947: "RSS is my heart's work. My dear young men, don't be
disturbed by uncharitable comments of interested persons. Look ahead! Go
ahead! The country is standing in need of your services".

I remember reading an article by Kushwant Singh, by no means a saffron zed
communal Hindu like myself, in the Illustrated Weekly of India on 26
November, 1972 (page 49). Here are his observations as an independent
spirited heroic journalist and not as a self-proclaimed historian of
global fame: "There are some people against whom you build up malice
without knowing them. Guru Golwalkar had long been on the top of my hate
list. What with the RSS doings in communal riots, the assassination of the
Mahatma, the talk of changing India from a secular to a Hindu state!
However as a journalist I could not resist the chance of meeting him. I
expected to run into a cordon of uniformed swayamsevaks. There are none;
not even plainclothes CID to take down the number of my car. It is a
middle-class apartment with an appearance of puja going on inside-rows of
sandals outside, fragrance of agarbatti, bustle of women behind the
scenes; tinkle of utensils and crockery. In a small room sit a dozen men
in spotless white kurtas and dhotis - all looking newly washed as only
Maharashtrian Brahmins manage to do. And Guru Golwalkar: a frail man in
mid-sixties: black hair curling to his shoulders; a moustache covering his
mouth; a wispy grey bread dangling down his chin. An inerasable smile and
dark eyes twinkling through his bifocals. He looks like an Indian Ho Chi
Minh. For a man who had only recently undergone surgery for breast cancer
he looks remarkably fit and cheerful".

When the interview started, I told Guruji Golwalkar "I don't know where to
begin. I am told you shun publicity and your organization is secret."
Guruji said: "It is true we do not seek publicity but there is nothing
secret about us. There is no militarism in our movement. We value
discipline - which is a different matter."

Even a cursory reading of this article by Kushwant Singh will show that he
was overwhelmed by the simplicity, decency, decorum, humility and
reverence of Guruji Golwalkar. To sum up in Kushwant Singh's own words:
"Was I impressed? I admit I was. He did not try to persuade me to his
point of view. He made me feel that he was open to persuasion. I accepted
his invitation to visit him in Nagpur and see things for myself. Maybe I
can bring him round to making Hindu-Muslim unity the main aim of his RSS
Or am I being a simple-minded Sardarji?"

Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Rajaji, Jayaprakash Narayan, Mahatma Gandhi and
several great men have paid their tribute to the outstanding qualities of
Sri Guruji Golwalkar as a fearless leader of national significance. My
rejoinder to Ramachandra Guha in this context will be in the words of
another Parsi journalist R K Karanjia: "Guruji Golwalkar had no axe to
grind, and in the pursuit of his ideals, languor was not in his heart,
weakness was not in his word, weariness was not on his brow. It would be
good if other political leaders emulate his example of dedicated life and
win the respect and confidence of his followers".

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